


All Friends Welcome

by speccygeekgrrl



Series: eleven plus two makes three [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fix-It, Fluff, Multi, cuddle puddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-10-05
Packaged: 2018-08-19 18:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8220544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speccygeekgrrl/pseuds/speccygeekgrrl
Summary: Eleven helped bring Will back where he belongs. Now it's Will's turn to bring El where she belongs. Mike's just glad to have them both back where he knows they both belong.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Should I feel bad for polyshipping twelve-year-olds? Probably. Do I feel bad for polyshipping twelve-year-olds? Hell no I do not. I am not done with these three yet, but this is the first fanfic I've written in two years, so... bear with me as I get back into the swing of it.

It's December and Will has a recurrent cough (with occasional slugs). He has every reason to stay inside where his mother wants him, it's the smart thing to do when he's still recovering from his week in the Upside Down, but he feels compelled to go to Castle Byers. It was his refuge, his only place of safety that couldn't keep him wholly safe in the end, and he's not sure what seeing it again will do to him when his last memory before being rescued was the walls exploding as he was attacked. But he has to see the real thing. He has to remind himself that he's back in the real world now.

He goes out on a Saturday morning, telling his mom that he's going to the Wheelers' house, which isn't exactly a lie, it's merely not where he's going first. He just needs to see it and touch it and then he can hang out with his friends for the rest of the day once he's got that extra reassurance that he's back where he belongs. There's a dusting of snow on the ground and he leaves a track through the woods as he approaches the hideout.

There are tracks on the ground outside the structure. Will pauses, but he can't tell which tracks are coming and which are going. He has a strange feeling, not the same sort of strange he's been feeling since he got home, and when he puts out a hand to pull aside the curtain he's both startled and not entirely surprised to find a girl in his sacred place.

"It's you," he says. She doesn't look surprised to see him, either. She looks happy to see him-- well, she looks cold and dirty and disheveled, short hair covered by a knit hat and bundled in what looks like an adult man's winter coat, but she also looks happy as she sits up under a mound of quilts and puts down his copy of The Hobbit.

"Will," she says. "You remember."

"Of course I remember," he says, and he comes into the castle and sits next to her. They'd been this close in the Upside Down, right here in this place, but now they're not being hunted or slowly dying, there's real light and the chill in the air isn't fatal-- but it is still cold, and he takes her bare hands between his gloved ones. "How-- why are you here? Everyone thinks you're dead."

"Safer if they think that," she says.

"I don't think anyone would care about their own safety if they knew you were out here in the cold all alone," Will says, knowing that Mike definitely wouldn't care about his own safety. Mike had mourned Eleven like she'd been part of his life since birth and not for only a week. Will had mourned her too, even though the only contact they'd ever had were those brief moments in the Upside Down-- she'd been the only thing to give him hope in that hellscape, and he'd wished so badly that he could have known her. And now here she was, huddled under the pile of quilts he'd left in the fort, not nearly enough to keep her warm in December. "Please come to Mike's with me. He'd freak out if he saw you walk in."

"Is that good?"

"It would be good." He studies her for a moment, feeling like he owes her so much and knows her so little. "Our friends miss you," he adds quietly, and a slight smile touches her lips.

"Are we friends?"

"You're in my castle," Will points out. "The sign says 'all friends welcome,' and you're welcome here, so you're my friend."

"Good," she says, and her cold hands clutch his back in a firm squeeze. "I miss them, too."

"Then let me bring you back to them," he says, and she nods, once, decisively. 

Will's not used to riding double on his bike, but Eleven isn't troublesome holding onto his waist. She holds him tighter as they ride through Mirkwood, less forbidding in the winter sunlight but still enough to send a shiver through him and make him pedal faster. He takes them behind the Wheelers' house and sneaks her through the back door and down the stairs.

"You're early," Mike says, finishing the line he was writing before turning with a smile for Will that freezes like a sheet of ice and shatters into disbelief when he sees her standing next to Will. He's out of his chair so fast that it falls to the floor, but he stops with his hands halfway to Eleven's face, like he's afraid she's a projection his fingers will pass through.

"Mike," she says, and he makes a sound that doesn't register as entirely a laugh or entirely a sob as he touches her cheek gently, then wraps his arms around her and drops his head to her shoulder.

"God, El..." Will bites the inside of his cheek, not sure what to do. The only time he's seen that relief on Mike's face was when he came into Will's hospital room barely a month before, and it brings home how much this girl means to his friend, the magnitude the likes of which Mike's words had only skirted the edges when he'd described Eleven to Will. Mike and Will have been best friends since kindergarten; El had become one of Mike's best friends in a week, or something even more than that, and Will's not sure if he's happy for them or a little bit jealous until Mike lifts his head and gives Will that smile again but turned up brighter. "Where did you-- _how_ did you--?"

"She was right where she found me," Will says, and Mike nods, needing no more explanation than that. "I told you he'd be happy to see you," he tells Eleven.

"Happy isn't the word," Mike says, but he doesn't say what the word is. When he lets go of Eleven she looks around the basement, pausing next to the table where the board is set out and touching Will's wizard figure with one fingertip before she steps closer to the blanket fort that's kept silent watch over the boys' gatherings in Eleven's absence. "I put it back up for you," Mike says, and Eleven smiles at him. "You look cold, get under the blankets and warm up a little."

"Not alone," Eleven says, and Will has never seen his friend light up quite like that before. 

"Not alone," he agrees, and he follows Eleven in and turns back, holding the doorway open for Will. "Come on, Will," he says, and Will hesitates.

"Should I stay or should I go?" 

"Is that a serious question?" Mike's still holding the blanket back, looking up at Will like he's just botched a perception check. "El helped bring you back, and you brought her back to me. Now we're all here. Are you coming in or not?" 

"It doesn't look like there's room for me," Will says, and Eleven shifts all the way to one side to make space.

"It's like Castle Byers," she says. "All friends welcome. You're a friend." Will looks from her to Mike and back again before bending to unlace his boots and crawling into the safety of the blanket fort. There isn't much room, honestly-- Mike's leaning against Eleven and Will sits on Mike's other side, surprised when Mike wraps an arm around his shoulders and does the same to El.

"I'm so glad that you're both here," Mike says, and Eleven makes a small happy sound and leans into him, which is exactly what Will wants to do too, but he doesn't actually do it until El reaches behind Mike and settles her hand on Will's back, anchoring the three of them together in the dim, cozy confines of the blanket walls and nest of pillows. That strange feeling Will's had all day knots itself tighter and then suddenly comes loose, and he doesn't know why he starts to shiver, but Mike's arm tightens around him. "Will? What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Will says, not sure it's the truth as he leans harder against his friend. "Nothing's wrong." He knows it's at least partially a lie-- he's going to have to say something about puking up slugs eventually-- but for now, right here, with his head on Mike's shoulder and El's hand on his back, it's true enough to say it out loud. When he figures out the origin of this strange feeling, it might qualify as something wrong, but until he looks at it closely enough to see what it's made of, he can just let it feel like the comfort he so desperately needs from exactly these two friends.


End file.
